The present disclosure relates to a home-bar door and a method of manufacturing the home-bar door.
Generally, a home bar is provided at a door of a refrigerator to allow a user to take food from the inside of the refrigerator without opening the door.
The home bar may include an opening formed through the door of the refrigerator, a home-bar door disposed at the opening and rotatable independent of the door, and a hinge allowing the home-bar door to rotate on a lower edge portion of the opening.
The home-bar door includes a front case, a rear case, and an insulating member. The front case forms the front exterior of the home-bar door, and the rear case forms the rear exterior of the home-bar door. The insulating member is disposed between the front case and the rear cases. The insulating member can be formed by filling a foaming material between the front and rear cases. In this case, the hinge can be installed on the home-bar door by placing the hinge between the front and rear cases and filling the foaming material between the front and rear cases to securely fix the hinge.
For this, a foaming material injection hole may be formed through one of the front and rear cases, and the foaming material may be injected between the front and rear cases through the foaming material injection hole after fixing the front and rear cases using a jig.
The foaming material injected between the front and rear cases covers a portion of the hinge and is formed into the insulating member by foaming. Since the hinge is fixed between the front and rear cases in this way, outer air can be prevented from entering into the refrigerator through a gap around the hinge.
However, the related-art home-bar door has the following disadvantages.
While the foaming material is being injected between the front and rear cases of the home-bar door or is being formed into the insulating material by foaming, the front and rear cases can be departed or deformed. That is, the home-bar door can be deformed, and thus the home-bar door cannot be smoothly opened and closed due to dimensional mismatch with the door of the refrigerator.
Furthermore, since the front and rear cases are fixed to a jig when the foaming material is injected between the front and rear cases of the home-bar door, the front and rear cases can be scratched, thereby making the cosmetic appearance of the home-bar door poor.
Moreover, it takes much time until the foaming material is fully formed into the insulating member by foaming.
In addition, when the foaming material is injected between the front and rear cases through the foaming material injection hole, the hinge placed between the front and rear cases of the home-bar door can be moved by the pressure of the foaming material. In this case, the home-bar door may be improperly installed on the door of the refrigerator and abnormally operated.